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Comment maybe another (mini) pretext for war? (Score 1) 408

by saady (#27032721) Attached to: Obama Helicopter Security Breached By File Sharing
The media is up to its usual fear inciting tactic to lay a foundation for more war and that is IF the tone of reporting was to suggest that anti-american countries were out to get them whereas it's the idiot who installed the P2P software who should be charged! Besides, I have lost faith in the American media that claims to be free and fair. There's too much sensationalism going on.
Google

Questioning Google's Privacy Reform 134

Posted by Soulskill from the how-private-is-private? dept.
JagsLive makes note of a story questioning whether Google's recent commitment to anonymize IP logs faster is really as good as it sounds. We discussed their announcement a few days ago. CNet's Chris Soghoian takes a closer look: "While the company hasn't said how it de-identifies the cookies, it has revealed in public statements that its IP anonymization technique consists of chopping off the last 8 bits of a user's IP address. As an example, an IP address of a home user could be 173.192.103.121. After 18 months, Google chops this down to 173.192.103.XXX. Since each octet (the numbers between each period of an IP) can contain values from 1-255, Google's anonymization technique allows a user, at most, to hide among 254 other computers. ... Google has now revealed that it will change "some" of the bits of the IP address after 9 months, but less than the eight bits that it masks after the full 18 months. Thus, instead of Google's customers being able to hide among 254 other Internet users, perhaps they'll be able to hide among 64, or 127 other possible IP addresses. By itself, this is a laughable level of anonymity. However, it gets worse."
Music

RIAA Victims Bring Class Action Against Kazaa 288

Posted by Zonk from the playing-right-into-their-hands dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Chicago, Illinois, a Kazaa customer has filed a class action against Kazaa, Lewan v. Sharman, U.S.Dist. Ct., N.D. Ill 06-cv-6736. The lead plaintiff, Catherine Lewan, was a Kazaa customer who was sued by the RIAA for her use of Kazaa, and paid a settlement to the RIAA, and she sues on behalf of others in her position. In her complaint(pdf) she alleges, among other things, that Kazaa deceptively marketed its product as allowing 'free downloads' (Complaint, par. 30); it designed the software in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done so (Complaint, par. 36-37); and it surreptitiously installed 'spyware' on users' computers which made the shared files folder accessible to the Kazaa network even after the user had removed the Kazaa software from his or her computer (Complaint, par. 42-45)."
Security

EveryDNS Under Botnet DDoS Attack 154

Posted by kdawson from the man-that-smarts dept.
mellow marsh writes "EveryDNS, sister company to OpenDNS (which runs the PhishTank anti-phishing initiative), has been hit by a massive distributed denial-of-service attack. The attack started sometime Friday afternoon and, from all indications, was targeting Web sites that used free DNS management services provided by EveryDNS. At the height of the DDoS bombardment, EveryDNS was being hit with more than 400mbps of traffic at each of its four locations around the world. From the article: '"We were collateral damage," Ulevitch explained... Because law enforcement is involved, Ulevitch was hesitant to release details of the actual target but there are signs that some of the targets were "nefarious domains" that have since been terminated.'" OpenDNS, which makes use of EveryDNS services, was affected for a time, until they spread their authoritative DNS more broadly. The EveryDNS site is now reporting that the attack is continuing but has been mitigated and is not affecting operations.
The Internet

U.S. Warns of Possible Cyber Biz Attack 179

Posted by Zonk from the rather-that-not-happen dept.
mikesd81 writes "The AP has an article about a possible attack against the New York Stock Exchange via the internet by a radical muslim group. The notice was issued to the U.S. cybersecurity industry after officials saw a posting on a 'Jihadist Web site' calling for an attack on U.S. Internet-based stock market and banking sites in December, said Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke. Knocke has said: 'There is no information corroborating the threat and that the alert was issued as a routine matter and out of an abundance of caution.' There is no immediate threat to our homeland at this time. The attacks were to be conducted in December, 'until the infidel new year,' the site said, according to a U.S. government translation. It called for attackers to use viruses that can penetrate Internet sites and destroy data stored there. Spokespeople for the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq declined to comment on the cyber-terror threat."
Microsoft

Get on the 'Gates for President' Bandwagon 654

Posted by Zonk from the jobs-for-vice-president dept.
netbuzz writes "Dilbert's Scott Adams kicked off the idea in his November 19th blog post, saying there isn't anything wrong with this country that President Bill Gates couldn't cure in less time than it takes to get a new operating system out the door. Today, the idea is moving forward with a brand-new 'Bill Gates for President' Web site. Adams is also back on the campaign trail, flogging the site and Gates' candidacy." A blog post at Network World includes a lot of eye-rolling about this idea, but neither Adams nor the folks at the 'Gates for President' website seem to be taking this lightly.
Security

First-Person Account of a Social Engineering Attack 347

Posted by kdawson from the in-by-the-front-door dept.
darkreadingman writes, "A penetration tester tells how he broke into a bank's network dressed as a copier repairman. Some good lessons here — many companies spend millions on network security, but don't teach their employees how to challenge a stranger in the building. Social engineering at the company site can be one of the most difficult attacks to defend against." From the article: "Before departing scenes like these, we try to document the effort and provide proof of our success. I usually leave something behind and then contact the person who hired me and direct them to the mark. In this case I wrote his password on a ream of paper and tucked it under the machine."

iPod Has Nothing To Fear From Slow-Starting Zune 422

Posted by kdawson from the but-we-knew-that dept.
narramissic writes, "Looks like Apple's iPod has nothing to fear from Zune this holiday season. In a research note published Tuesday, PiperJaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster writes that 'during its launch week on Nov. 16, Zune held the seventh spot on online retailer Amazon.com's top 10 best-selling MP3 players list, and it fell from that spot to 13 on the list only five days after launch, on Nov. 20.' Even worse, only 8% of retailers surveyed by PiperJaffray recommend the Zune to customers, while 75% recommend Apple's iPod." The article notes Apple's 5-year headstart in the portable player market and Microsoft's stated intention to invest heavily in the Zune over the next several years.
Wii

Wii Aches - Couch Potatoes Working it Up 336

Posted by Zonk from the those-rabbids-won't-kill-themselves dept.
Genocaust writes "While the new controller on the Wii is proving to be a success, it's turning out to be more effort than some die-hard couch potatoes bargained for. The Wall Street Journal reports on the newest workout regime for nerds." From the article: "In Rochester, Minn., Jeremy Scherer and his wife spent three hours playing tennis and bowling, two of the games included with the Wii. Mr. Scherer says he managed to improve his scores — at the cost of shoulders and back that were still aching the next day. 'I was using muscles I hadn't used in a while,' says Mr. Scherer, a computer programmer who describes himself as 'not very active.' Mr. Scherer is vowing nightly 'Wii workouts' to get in better shape." "Bunnies Don't Know What To Do With Cows", in Rayman, is another guaranteed way to get your arm aching. Cows are heavy, and it takes a lot of energy to throw them.

Former Spy Poisoned By Radiation In UK 432

Posted by Zonk from the fishy-quite-fishy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "BBC new is reporting the death of the ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with a major dose of radioactive polonium-210. But nobody knows how it got there. Suspicions have fallen upon the Russian security services (who deny involvement). The task of the pathologists now is to unpick what really killed him and how it was administered. Quite what techniques they will use to solve this puzzle is unclear." From the article: "A post-mortem examination on Mr Litvinenko has not been held yet. The delay is believed to be over concerns about the health implications for those present at the examination. But Roger Cox from the HPA said a large quantity of alpha radiation emitted from polonium-210 had been detected in Mr Litvinenko's urine."

The Wii Disassembled 160

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the inside-on-the-outside dept.
mrmcgeeber writes "There are two ways to take apart the Wii. The first, as demonstrated by Popular Science, involves breaking the Wii open due to a lack of tools. The second method is a more formal Wii disassembly guide, which is provided by InformIT.com. Either way, you can see some detailed pictures of the internals of the Wii and how the parts are laid out. The InformIT.com version also includes an eight minute teardown video."

Students Put UCLA Taser Video On YouTube 1583

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the police-buddhism-studies dept.
dircha writes "As widely reported, an incident in which Iranian-American student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was tasered up to five times by UCLA police on Friday, has been captured by a fellow student using a video enabled cell phone and published to YouTube. From the Daily Bruin: 'At around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Tabatabainejad, a fourth-year Middle Eastern and North African studies and philosophy student, was asked to leave the library for failing to present his BruinCard during a random check. The 23-year-old student was hit with a Taser five times when he did not leave quickly and cooperatively upon being asked to do so.' In a story which has raised concerns of racial profiling, police brutality and the health risks of taser use, the ubiquity of video cell phone technology has given us a first hand record of an incident which might otherwise have been a he-said, she-said affair. While the publishing of the video to YouTube has given the issue compelling popular exposure beyond the immediate campus community."

Wii Launches, Sells Out Peacefully 565

Posted by Hemos from the no-gunfire-ftw dept.
porcupine8 writes "Like the Playstation 3, the Nintendo Wii sold out on launch day this weekend. Unlike the PS3, the launch was a peaceful affair with no reports yet of console-related violence in the US. This may be partially due to the fact that Nintendo promises to have a total of four million units in stores by Christmas, with the bulk of those going to North America. Midnight launch parties on both the east and west coasts ushered the new console in with a bang." Please, if you've managed to snag a Wii yourself, share your opinions below! Update: 11/20 17:25 GMT by Z : A few quick impressions from 24 hours of owning a Wii, and some links on the subject if you Read More.

New Google Service Manipulates Caller-ID For Free 116

Posted by kdawson from the party-to-whom-you-are-speaking dept.
Lauren Weinstein writes to raise an alarm about a new Google service, Click-to-Call. As he describes it, the service seems ripe for abuse of several kinds. One red flag is that Google falsifies the caller-ID of calls it originates for the service. From the article: "Up to now, the typical available avenue for manipulating caller-ID has been pay services that tended to limit the potential for large-scale abuse since users are charged for access. Google, by providing a free service that will place calls and manipulate caller-ID, vastly increases the scope of the problem. Scale matters."

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